Cauefield v. Fidelity and Casualty Company of New York

• Decision Date: 02 December 1965
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 1806,1807.
• Citation: 247 F. Supp. 851
• Parties: Sargent CAUEFIELD v. The FIDELITY AND CASUALTY COMPANY OF NEW YORK. Jim LUCAS and Sargent Cauefield v. SOUTHERN FARM BUREAU CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Louisiana

247 F. Supp. 851

Sargent CAUEFIELD v. The FIDELITY AND CASUALTY COMPANY OF NEW YORK.

Jim LUCAS and Sargent Cauefield v. SOUTHERN FARM BUREAU CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY.

Civ. A. Nos. 1806, 1807.

United States District Court E. D. Louisiana, Baton Rouge Division.

December 2, 1965.

J. D. DeBlieux, DeBlieux & Guidry, Baton Rouge, La., for plaintiffs.

Maurice J. Wilson, Breazeale, Sachse & Wilson, Baton Rouge, La., for the Fidelity and Casualty Co. of New York.

Robert J. Vandaworker, Taylor, Porter, Brooks, Fuller & Phillips, Baton Rouge, La., for Southern Farm Bureau Casualty Ins. Co.

WEST, District Judge:

These cases, consolidated for trial, are before the Court on the motions of defendants, Fidelity and Casualty Company of New York and Southern Farm Bureau Casualty Insurance Company, to dismiss on the grounds of res judicata, judicial estoppel, and for lack of coverage under the policies of insurance issued by them to their respective assureds, Ernest Gremillion and Thomas Mobley. The motions pertaining to res judicata and judicial estoppel are based upon defendants' contentions that this matter has been completely and thoroughly tried and adjudicated in the State Courts of the State of Louisiana, and that thus, all issues presently before this Court have previously been decided adversely to plaintiffs by a court of competent jurisdiction. While the Court is of the opinion that the technical requirements of a plea of res judicata as prescribed by the law of Louisiana have not been met, it does, however, conclude, for the reasons hereinafter stated, that the doctrine of judicial estoppel simply must be applied in this case in order to do substantial justice between these parties and to bring this litigation to an end once and for all.

In 1945, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Mobley occupied Belleview Plantation in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana, a property which they had acquired in 1937. Located on this plantation was an old cemetery or graveyard embracing about one acre of ground in which were buried the remains of various people who had, prior to their death, resided on or in the vicinity of Belleview Plantation. The last burial in the cemetery, known as Pike's Peak Cemetery, was apparently in the year 1948. In March of 1956, Mr. Mobley secured the services of one Ernest Gremillion, a dirt contractor, to clear certain of his lands, including the area containing the Pike's Peak Cemetery, which had become completely overgrown with briars, thickets, and small trees. After this clearing was completed, forty-one relatives of persons interred in Pike's Peak Cemetery filed twenty-six separate suits in the Eighteenth Judicial District Court for the Parish of Pointe Coupee, Louisiana, for damages, alleging desecration of the graveyard by Mr. Mobley and Mr. Gremillion. All of these plaintiffs were represented by the same attorney and all of the suits were filed in forma pauperis. Shortly after these suits were filed, the same attorney filed similar suits on behalf of the present plaintiffs, Cauefield and Lucas, who were also plaintiffs in the Pointe Coupee Parish suits, in the Nineteenth Judicial District Court for the Parish of East Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and also filed similar suits on their behalf in this Court. He then filed another similar suit in the Nineteenth Judicial District Court on behalf of one Sid Thomas, who had not filed suit in Pointe Coupee Parish. The two suits filed on behalf of Cauefield and Lucas in the Nineteenth Judicial District Court were subsequently removed by defendants to this Court, leaving only the Thomas suit pending in the Nineteenth Judicial District Court. In all of these cases, the issues were identical and the defendants in all cases were the same, i. e., either Mobley and Gremillion or their insurers, or both.

The defendants then moved to proceed with the Pointe Coupee Parish cases in order that all of the cases might be consolidated for trial. But when plaintiffs' attorney discovered that he would be unable to secure a transcript of the proceedings in that Court, (see Hartford, et al v. Mobley, 233 La. 956, 98 So.2d 250), he elected to try the Thomas case before a jury in the Nineteenth Judicial District Court for the Parish of East Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a court wherein he could obtain a complete stenographic transcript of the entire proceedings for appellate purposes.

There is no actual evidence to support a finding that the attorneys in these cases formally agreed or stipulated to be bound in all of the various cases by the decision in the Thomas case, but this Court firmly believes that it was, in fact, the intention of counsel for all parties to be so bound by the decision in the Thomas case which had been selected as the vehicle by which all of the issues in these various identical claims were to be tried and resolved. Such a finding, however, is not necessary to a determination of the matter presently before this Court. The Thomas case was completely and throughly tried to a jury in a trial lasting nine days in the Nineteenth Judicial District Court for the Parish of East Baton Rouge, State of Louisiana. Following an adverse decision by the jury, the plaintiff Thomas appealed and, in accordance with Louisiana law, after a thorough review by the Court of Appeal on both the facts and the law, the case was again decided adversely to the plaintiff. Thomas v. Mobley, et al., La. App., 118 So.2d 476 (1st Cir. 1960); Thomas v. Gremillion, et al., La.App., 118 So.2d 485 (1st Cir. 1960). It is important at this point to note that in the course of its decision, the Appellate Court, after reviewing both the facts and the law, concluded:

"The principal question of this litigation is whether the clearing of the graveyard constituted a desecration of the ancient Pike's Peak graveyard so as to entitle the plaintiffs to damages. * * *

"Accepting defendants' factual testimony as true, no legal authority is cited, and we are unable to hold as a matter of law, that such cleaning operations constituted a desecration of the burial grounds, taking into consideration that defendant Mobley first accepted without success to secure the cleaning of this eyesore on his land by relatives of those buried therein, that he took pains to preserve the headstones and to map their location with the intention of reinstating them following completion of the operations, and that no graves were actually disturbed or destroyed. The mere action of using machinery to clear the cemetery, providing care was taken to preserve the grave markers and their locations, did not constitute a desecration under the circumstances of this case. * * *

"Because we feel that defendant Mobley's testimony was based upon such genuine and truthful intention, and because it would be inequitable to deny plaintiff recovery if as he alleges the testimony which defeated his claim is based upon temporary convenience rather than upon fact, we therefore feel that in the interest of justice the affirmance of this suit's dismissal should be without prejudice to plaintiff to reinstate his claim if, within a year of the final date of this judgment, defendant Mobley has not completed the restoration of the graveyard and tombstones as promised by his testimony and as specifically tendered by his letter of November 16, 1956 offered into evidence as Mobley—6; and without prejudice to any claim for future denial of access to said cemetery. * * *" Thomas v. Mobley, La.App., 118 So.2d 476, 477.

And:

"The preponderance of the evidence in the record demonstrates that this work was performed without disturbing any graves and that it, in fact, resulted as planned in a great improvement in the appearance of the cemetery." Thomas v. Gremillion, La.App., 118 So.2d 485, 486.

The completion of the restoration by defendants, as required by that judgment, was subsequently accomplished and approved by the same Court. Thomas v. Southern Farm Bureau Casualty Insurance Co., 154 So.2d 619 (1st Cir. 1963); Thomas v. Fidelity and Casualty Co. of New York, 155 So.2d 674 (1st Cir. 1963).

After all appellate procedures were exhausted and the Thomas case was finally terminated adversely to the plaintiff, the present plaintiffs, Cauefield and Lucas, through the same attorney who had represented Thomas in the State Court proceedings, moved to bring these present suits on for trial in this Court. All of the issues presented here are identical in every respect with the issues presented to the State Court in the Thomas case. The defendants in these cases are the same as those involved in the Thomas case. It is true that the plaintiffs here are not the identical parties named as plaintiffs in the Thomas case, but they are two of the forty odd persons who originally filed suit alleging the identical cause of action against the identical defendants as was tried in the Thomas case. And the similarity in the cases is even more striking when it is observed that while the plaintiffs here, Cauefield and Lucas, were not nominal parties in the Thomas suit, they were, nevertheless, extremely interested witnesses who actively participated in and testified during the trial on behalf of the plaintiff Thomas. All of the testimony in support of their claim which they were then able to give or which they could not give was given by them during that trial. Indeed, this Court has been advised by counsel for the plaintiffs that there will be no substantial difference between the testimony offered in the Thomas case and that to be offered to this Court in the present case.

The issue before the Court in the Thomas case was whether or not the Pike's Peak Cemetery had been desecrated by Mobley and...